Rain
by dropdeadred
Summary: Another sad home story :)


DISCLAIMER: I'm just taking them out to play for a while, they'll be back before you know it...  
NOTES: I just got through watching Counterpoint and although I was prepared to hate it... I *loved* it! Janeway just came to life. Kashyk was her perfect counterpoint. Made me briefly wonder(well, long enough to write this lot down) whether Janeway and Chakotay could ever go the distance. I'd also just read something by August, and then I read a poem by Anna Akhmatova, then I had a bottle of beer..... Roses now tells me I have to stay away from things that begin with 'A', although she'd never dream of denying me beer... 

*** 

The slight sheen in your eyes was the only thing that gave you away. We were standing side by side on the bridge of Voyager as you brought us into spacedock. Your eyes were fixed on earth. Mine were fixed on you. Your chin was up, your shoulders staunch, your hands clasped firmly behind your back. The slight jolt of the docking clamps shook us and I saw you close your eyes briefly. I had to look away then, felt like I was intruding on something personal, and not for the first time I felt an apprehensive knot in my stomach that had nothing to do with Earth or the Alpha Quadrant or Starfleet. Looking back, I guess I should paid more attention to my gut. 

Voyager was a difficult experience. It altered our perceptions in ways we hadn't even imagined until we felt the spacedock clutching us to its bosom, suddenly knew that life as we had known it for so long was undeniably over. For all the ways, however, that Voyager made things difficult, it also made some things easier, and this was the root of my discomfort. It was easy to believe that things would always be this simple. During our journey we, and by we I mean all of us, the entire family, we were an entirely understood and defined quantity. We found our places, carved out our corners, solidified our place in the web of lives. And my place was by your side. I had always felt it, although it took you some time to let it be. I was convinced it was something cosmic, something spiritual that bound us. You loved me, in your own way, but you never entertained the idea of our love on the same level as I. But that didn't matter. We were bound to one another by the situation, surely something mystical had thrown us together? It was meant to be. I never imagined having to vie for your attention. Maybe I should have seen it. Maybe I should have known. Maybe I was so wrapped up in worshipping the spirits who brought us together, when I should have been worshipping you. Oh I had worshipped your body until your cried for it to stop, and thanked the stars that I stood at your side. But your soul? I don't think I ever knew you that well. I remember the last time we spoke. All of a sudden I didn't like you very much, and I also didn't like me. I wonder if I ever really knew either of us. 

*** 

I saw my family off the ship. Each of them, one by one, we said our goodbyes, none of us certain when we'd all meet again. Chakotay lagged behind, waiting for me, and I was grateful of the company. He sensed my distance and sought to close it physically. He had been trailing me around the ship since we first achieved the far reaches of the Alpha Quadrant. I sensed his anxiety but could do nothing to stem it. We'd talked about what would happen if and when we finally made it, but I don't think we really thought about it until it was too real to ignore. He didn't like the idea of sharing me with Earth, with everyone there, and I was so eager to spread myself wide and take it all in. He'd never say anything directly of course, and I found his insecure plan-making touching. He just needed to make sure. I guess that's when I should have said something, but things had been so uncomplicated, I thought, and so pleasant. I never realised what a walkover Mark had been - he let me have it all - and I thought Chakotay would be the same. I've never been more wrong, or more sorry. 

The reception in our honour was as grand an affair as could be expected at such short notice. Families hugged, people wept, I think I even saw Tuvok a little glassy-eyed. And I waltzed about the place with a permanent entourage, the Captain who had brought Voyager home. 

I guess I was a little intoxicated with the high spirits of the gathering, a little big-headed. I was the centre of attention and for once I allowed myself to love it. It made me an ugly creature. I searched the crowds for you, pulled you out to dance with me. We held one another close and you told me you loved me and pulled me closer. But I couldn't speak the words back to you. They would not come. You didn't seem to notice immediately, but I had shocked myself enough for both of us. You noticed my silence and eventually pulled back to look at me. I saw the fear in your eyes and can't imagine you saw anything in mine to reassure you. Some press people came along for an interview, separated us. I kept looking over at you as you drifted to the bar. I saw you order a drink and it made you cough. I never saw you drink before. 

Tom came to me hours later. I was sitting by the tall open windows watching the rain. He slipped a drink into my hands and we just sat in silence for a while. He began to speak about B'Elanna in a disconnected kind of way and, unfortunately, I understood him perfectly. It was all different now. Then he mentioned your name. I wanted to cry. When he spoke your name I felt bad, rotten. He misunderstood me, I think, for he began to rub my arm and say cheery, trite things. All of a sudden it was too much; too much misplaced sympathy, too many people hailing me when inside I felt like pondscum.  
I don't love him Tom.  
The hand on my arm stopped, but something else froze me, and that's when I turned and saw you. You excused yourself and stepped outside. I was up out of my seat and through the doors before I could even think why I was following you. What could I say? 

A little way from the building you stopped and turned to me, frozen in your tracks a way back. We stood for what seemed an eternity, the rain soaking us, dripping into our eyes and off our noses. Perhaps I was crying. I didn't want to leave it like this, hadn't meant for it to happen like this. If I hadn't been so cold maybe I would have felt a regretful chill as you turned and surveyed the dark night and spoke, your voice carried away from me into the blackness. 

"Why don't you get in out of the rain." 

I wish none of this had ever happpened. 

  
~FIN~

_I wrung my hands under my dark veil...  
'Why are you so pale, what makes you so reckless?'  
-Because I have made my loved one drunk  
with an astringent sadness.   
I'll never forget. He went out, reeling;  
his mouth twisted, desolate...  
I ran downstairs, not touching the banisters,  
and followed him as far as the gate. _

_And shouted choking: 'I meant it all  
in fun. Don't leave me, or I'll die of pain.'  
He smiled at me - oh so calmly, terribly-  
and said: 'Why don't you get out of the rain?' _

Anna Akhmatova  
trans. M.Hayward & S.Kunitz


End file.
